Here’s an image of a bullet’s path to the target. There’s a couple of things to note. First of all, this is not a tracer round, the projectile actually has an LED incorporated which was picked up as a trail in the long (relative to bullet speed) exposure. The second – and most obvious – thing to consider is the non-liner path it took to its objective. That’s because this is a laser guided bullet.

The smart bullet is a about four inches long and carries with it a light sensor, 8-bit processor, and some electromagnetic actuators. The tip is searching for a laser-painted target, with an algorithm calculating course corrections along the way and using the actuators to move fins which alter its path. For us the most interesting part is that this ammo requires a non-rifled barrel. The rifling spins the bullet as it leaves the firearm, which usually results in a straighter and more dependable path. But the microcontroller wouldn’t be able reliably steer if it were spinning.

We’d bet this ends up as a special sniper tool in video games before we hear about it on the battlefield. Check out a clip of the dart-like bullet leaving the muzzle in the clip after the break.

Union representatives and government inspectors are looking into complaints that managers at a Norwegian call center forbid employees from spending more than eight minutes a day on, uh, personal business:

Managers are alerted by flashing lights if an employee is away from their desk for a loo break or other “personal activities” beyond the allotted time. [...]

A spokesman added: “Surveying staff to limit lavatory visits, cigarette breaks, personal phone calls and other personal needs to a total of eight minutes per day is highly restrictive and intrusive and must be stopped.”

The firm said the aim of the checks was not to measure the breaks taken by individual workers but to assess staffing needs to ensure all calls from customers were answered and it would now be reviewing the policy.

It is the latest example of lavatory rules in Norwegian companies.

Last year the country’s workplace ombudsman said one firm was reported for making women workers wear a red bracelet when they were having their period to justify more frequent trips to the loo.

Another company made staff sign a lavatory “visitors book” while a third issued employees with an electronic key card to gain access to the lavatories so they could monitor breaks.

While some people might find humor in the news story, Sheets and Pallito said, it comes at the expense of Vermont taxpayers.

Pallito said each decal costs $13. He believes 60 defective decals were manufactured.

The $780 printing job will come out of the small profits Prison Industries receives while making license plates, stationery for state offices and wood products for state offices and schools, Pallito said.

He said inmates in the prison industries division who want new computers and better tools to do their jobs will have to wait longer while the state police are reimbursed.

Quote:

He said it is possible the inmate is no longer in custody. If he is, he could face internal discipline for misuse of state property.

“I don’t know if there is a criminal charge,” Pallito said.

Attempts to reach Gov. Peter Shumlin for comment were unsuccessful.

“This is not as offensive as it would have been years ago. We can see the humor,” said Public Safety Commissioner Keith Flynn, a former state trooper and state prosecutor who was named commissioner a year ago. “If the person had used some of that creativeness, he or she would not have ended up inside.”

Mushroom 001Is this the answer to the ever-growing plastic scourge on our planet? From co.exist:

The Amazon is home to more species than almost anywhere else on earth. One of them, carried home recently by a group from Yale University, appears to be quite happy eating plastic in airless landfills.

The group of students, part of Yale’s annual Rainforest Expedition and Laboratory with molecular biochemistry professor Scott Strobel, ventured to the jungles of Ecuador. The mission was to allow “students to experience the scientific inquiry process in a comprehensive and creative way.” The group searched for plants, and then cultured the microorganisms within the plant tissue. As it turns out, they brought back a fungus new to science with a voracious appetite for a global waste problem: polyurethane.

The common plastic is used for everything from garden hoses to shoes and truck seats. Once it gets into the trash stream, it persists for generations. Anyone alive today is assured that their old garden hoses and other polyurethane trash will still be here to greet his or her great, great grandchildren. Unless something eats it.

The fungi, Pestalotiopsis microspora, is the first anyone has found to survive on a steady diet of polyurethane alone and–even more surprising–do this in an anaerobic (oxygen-free) environment that is close to the condition at the bottom of a landfill…

In the past few decades, changes in sentencing laws and get-tough-on-crime policies have led to an explosion in America's prison population. Funding this incarceration binge has been an enormous drain on taxpayer dollars, with some states now spending more to lock up their citizens than to provide their children with education. It's difficult to spin anything positive out of that scenario, but as it turns out, even this blackest of clouds has a silver lining – silver as in dollars, that is, for the private prison industry.

In December 2009, South African maskandi singer Khulekani Kwakhe "Mgqumeni" Mseleku died after consuming a poisonous potion brewed by a healer. But last week, the singer returned from the dead in the town of Mquthu, much to delight of his fans, who descended upon the village in cheering throngs.

Where had Mgqumeni been for the past two years? According to the resurrected singer, he had been held in a mystical storage container with zombies (who had a penchant for identity fraud).

The folk troubadour claimed that he had been trapped in a cave outside of Johannesburg, where zombies changed his physical attributes ("My facial and body appearance has changed," he said, sporting a new gold tooth) and forged an identity card with a false name (his undead moniker is "Sphamanda Gcabashe"). Said the singer of his harrowing imprisonment:

I have been suffering a lot at the place where I was kept with zombies. It was hell there and I am so grateful that I was able to free myself and return to my family and you, my supporters. I promise to continue singing once I gather enough strength.

To make matters even more problematic for Mgqumeni, the zombies tried to perform a painful ritual to transform him into a Tokoloshe, or a genus of evil water sprite:

I have been living a painful life over the past two years. The people who captured me shaved my dreadlocks because they wanted to put a nail in my head.

After gaining the approval of several not-zombified relatives, everyone got riled up over exhuming Mgqumeni's grave to prove that he's back from the dead. Some more dubious relations notified the police, who arrested the faux-Mgqumeni before he could spin more yarns about necrotic hairdressers. Remember, if someone comes back from the dead, always, always ask for a DNA test. Also, it's a perfectly reasonable assumption that zombies are not trained in the more delicate aspects of oral surgery, so be suspicious of any undead-installed mouth jewelry.

So, Jack in the Box created a Bacon Milkshake. Why? Because you secretly want one, that's why. Shame on you. The noted fast food chain, it seems, wanted to create bacon-tinged buzz. This will probably do the trick. It's all part of a new ad campaign that asks: If you like bacon so much, why don't you marry it? SFist called our local Jack to ask more about the porky dessert. When we asked if it had real bacon in it, the store manger explained, "Real bacon? Ugh no. It's just a flavored shake, flavored with syrup, I think."